Work has long been a
focus of value in western society. Economically and socially,
it has defined
a person’s place in the community.
Despite its importance, however, the concept of work is widely misunderstood.
Lacking recent examination, it is bound to a definition conceived in
terms of 19th Century schemes of production that no longer apply to
what most working people today actually do.

In physics, the concept
of energy, combining the variables of force and distance, describes
the capacity to do work. Power is energy expended
over a period of time. One horsepower equals 550 foot-pounds per
second; it is the expenditure of enough energy in one second,
for instance
to move an object for 110 feet with 5 pounds of force.

In labor economics,
work has a more ambiguous nature although its elements are
presented with a veneer of mathematical precision. Generally
speaking,
work represents the human capacity to perform economically useful
functions. In a slave-based economy, such capacity might have been
defined by
the number of persons owned by a slave master. Today, when most
work is performed in the context of an employment contract, the
amount
of time which an employee has agreed to spend in employer-directed
activities
in return for wages has become a measure of its quantity.

The amount
of work available to the employer can be calculated by multiplying
the number of employees under contract by the average
time which they
are committed to spend on the employer’s projects in a
given time period. Its unit of measurement would be the “worker-hour”.
This definition of work assumes that economic output is proportionate
to the time spent producing it. The time can, in turn, be broken
down into two elements. Aggregate hours of work are the product
of employment
(or numbers of people employed) and average working hours.

A
common practice is to pay workers by the hour on the theory
that such a reward would be roughly in line with the benefit
which the
employers receives from their production. The employer presumably
is interested
in expanding production because that is what he sells to gain
revenue. It seems obvious that the more people who work at
something or
the more time they each spend working, the more labor is contributed
to the production process. The more labor contributed, the
more goods
or services are produced, the more revenue the employer derives
from sales, and the higher the profits. The economic relationships
appear
to be iron-clad.

Actually, this model
of work is based on a situation which once was more prevalent
than it is today. We
still think of
work in
terms
of simple manual labor. For example, one can imagine a group
of people peeling potatoes. The workers might be seated on
stools as they remove
peelings from the potatoes with paring knives and then toss
the peeled potatoes into a basket. In this situation, there
would
be
a direct
correlation between the worker-hours of labor assigned to
the task of peeling potatoes and the number of potatoes peeled.

If the employer wanted
more potatoes to be peeled, he could engage more labor. Either
he could hire more workers, or
he could schedule
longer hours of work
for his existing crew. But even here, there is another factor to
consider - how fast the people work. The generic term for this
factor
is labor
productivity.
Besides employment and hours, the number of peeled potatoes can also
be increased by increasing the number of potatoes each
worker peels
in an hour, in other
words.

Labor economists have
developed the following equation to describe the relationship
between the various factors:
Output
equals
employment times average work hours
times productivity. Output describes the physical volume of goods
and services produced within a system. Employment, work
hours,
and productivity are
elements of labor input. Labor productivity is not measured
directly, but is instead
a ratio calculated from the other three variables in the equation.
It is output divided by aggregate hours of work.

We therefore
tend to exclude productivity from the concept of work, regarding
it instead as a measure of efficiency
in using
labor. We think of an employer
motivating his people to do more work in a given time period,
as if the boss were a football coach urging his team on
to a greater
effort while on the
playing field. While that model might describe a simple process
like peeling potatoes,
its definition is inadequate for the kinds of work which most
people do today. Much of the large-scale production has been
assumed by
machines. Those machines
have raised the speed of production far more than what human
laborers could achieve through intensified work performance.
Capital
investment drives
expanded production,
not changes in labor practice.

Furthermore, goods production
has itself become a shrinking area of work. More and more people
are employed in occupations where
the object
is
not to produce
particular quantities of goods but to perform a required service
as the need arises. For this, the worker needs mainly to know
how to do
the
work when
it needs to be done. The rest of the time the worker is on
standby, not doing anything but waiting for an opportunity to
perform
a required function.
Think
of a sales
clerk at a counter in an empty store.

the knowledge economy

A growing number of
people are employed in offices. Office work involves the gathering,
manipulation, and transmission
of information.
There
appears to
be a looser connection between this kind of work and time
spent
on the job. In addition
to time and numbers employed, the element of knowledge has
become an important ingredient of work in its contemporary
form. But
how to measure
knowledge?
That is a difficult question to answer.

The type of work illustrated
by peeling potatoes does not involve the use of equipment except
for a small knife. It
requires
no knowledge beyond that involved
in cutting the outer skin off a potato. Consequently, work
performance can be improved - done more quickly - if the
worker handles the
peeling operation
in
a mindless, automatic fashion. The knowledge to do this
job can be learned in a minute or two, and is always there.

That
kind of work is different than situations where the challenge
is not to repeat a simple operation more quickly
but to solve
problems that
have
seldom,
if ever, appeared before. Intelligence is brought to
bear upon such problems either through original discovery or
improvised techniques or else by
knowing where the pertinent knowledge can be obtained.
In office
work, new knowledge
often obtained second hand. One asks a supervisor or
co-worker how
a problem should be solved; or, one reads a manual, memo,
or other document
providing
information on the subject. It is up to the worker individually
to find this knowledge and
learn it in time to perform the required work function.

One
can see that the capacity for work involves much more than
having enough time or expending enough personal
effort.
Access
to work-related
knowledge
also determines how fast a piece of work can be completed.
In this regard, such factors
as maintaining a complete and orderly filing system
can become important. Having a good memory, years of experience,
and
active lines of communication
with
one’s
co-workers are other assets from a knowledge standpoint.

When work is seen from
this perspective, one realizes that the traditional way of improving
work performance
- putting
in the
time and working
quickly - may
be less important than cultivating sources of knowledge.
Also, one sees that applying knowledge to work does
not necessarily occur in
proportion
to the
time spent. Knowledge can be revealed in a flash.
The essential benefit is access
to knowledge as needed, not a process of steady delivery.
In
that respect, the economic structure of work may
be like that of public
utilities
where the electric-power
company levies a surcharge for use in a period of
peak demand or the telephone company adds an access charge
to its monthly
billing.

Another kind of knowledge-related
work would be where the work depends upon highly personal skills
or attributes
of personality.
There is,
for instance,
no known
way to teach the unusual baseball skills of Dave
Winfield or Johnny Carson’s
knack for entertaining late-night television audiences,
or Vanna White’s
fetching way of turning letters in crossword puzzles.
Such workers have talents unique to themselves and
so can command exorbitant salaries. Part of their
talent
may lie in the genes, another part may have developed
through cultivation, and still another part would
depend on the fortunate circumstances of their particular
occupation.

As I write these words,
I am waiting for the Minnesota
Vikings to play the New Orleans Saints in the NFL
playoff. The Vikings
Quarterback,
Brett Favre,
must
have been paid a fortune for his past, present,
and future “work” this
season. Can we say it is millions of dollars to
deliver a certain skilled performance that might help the
team win the NFL championship and possibly the
Superbowl? What economic utility might that have? A Superbowl
victory might produce thousands
of additional Vikings fans in the future willing
to pay high ticket prices. Additionally, it might
create an overpowering argument in the next session
of the Minnesota
legislature that Minnesota taxpayers should help
build the Vikings
a new stadium. The issue is much more complicated
than what a “worker” -
Brett Favre, in this case - can do to produce valuable
economic output.

Brett Favre knows how
to throw touchdown passes. This is at least “productive” knowledge.
Some highly paid workers are paid not for what
they know, but who they know. On January 3, 2005,
Rep. Billy Tauzin of Louisiana retired from Congress
after
serving for 25 years, including a stint as chair
of the House Energy and Commerce Committee. He
immediately took a job for $2.5 million a year
as head of the Pharmaceutical
Research and Manufacturers of America. His lobbying
former colleagues resulted in passage of the
Medicare Prescription Drug bill which many have said was
far
too generous to the drug companies. Tauzin, as
former head of a key committee, knew the people
he needed to convince. His services were possibly
worth billions
to the drug companies, although he was paid less.

It
makes little sense to talk of Tauzin’s effectiveness
per hour in doing economically useful work (which resulted
in additional
expense to U.S. taxpayers).
Yes, he had personal skills and knowledge honed
by years spent in Congress which were put to good use in lobbying
his former colleagues. But his main selling
point was that the other members of Congress
knew him personally. His years of serving on Capitol Hill all
came to bear on his visits with former colleagues
and his testimony before committees. And so
it is with most sales jobs. It is not the selling skill so
much
as the cumulative contacts and reputation that
one acquires over a career which makes for
effective “work”.
How to frame this in schemes of “output
per man-hour” is difficult to
fathom.

But let’s get
back to the idea of packing knowledge into work. Many employers
continue to function as if work were time-based,
and fail to exploit the available resources
for knowledge. There is simply not the documentation
of work procedures
to maintain reliable access, which can cause
problems during personnel interruptions.
The
training process, too, is often misdirected
because the trainers do not know
what knowledge is needed or they lack the
knowledge itself.

The model of work may
be partly responsible for such errors. If one believes that work
improvement
is
primarily a matter
of employee
motivation, one
may respond differently than if one believes
it has to do with application
of
knowledge. In the first case, corporate
training
programs may be conducted by psychologists
and other human-resources specialists whose
purpose is to instill the proper attitudes
in people.
In the second
case,
the programs
would
attempt to
deliver useful information related to the
employee’s field of work, if the
information exists in a tangible form.

Work-related knowledge
is in the nature of an asset; it is a legacy from the past
benefitting
present
performance. The
question
is:
Who owns this
asset?
Unlike capital equipment, which clearly
belongs to the employer, the ownership
of knowledge
is uncertain. To the extent that the
knowledge is of a
particular work situation only, then
the employer receives exclusive
benefit from it
and exercises
real ownership. Even so, one must recognize
that
the employee effectively controls
knowledge which is inside his own head.
If he quits a job, he takes that knowledge
with
him.
This is
useless knowledge
if too
specific
to be applied
to other
employment situations, but, alternatively,
a thing of
some value as analogous to situations
found elsewhere.

The American career
system is built on the theory that most work-related knowledge
is
portable.
The worker
pursuing a
career becomes a
labor commodity, in which
the knowledge acquired in school or
in
previous jobs become fused with the
worker’s
own energies and talent. Therefore,
the U.S. worker tends to be a specialist
in a particular field of work, whose
basic skills are assumed to apply as
well
to one employer as to another. This
is therefore a scheme of careers that encourages
job hopping.

It is assumed, for instance,
that an experienced purchasing agent from another
firm, knowing
the “principles” of purchasing,
can easily pick up the incidental
knowledge involved in changing employment
- e.g.,
meeting the
people in different departments or
learning where the file cabinets
are located - but that a secretary
in the
purchasing department, already familiar
with its
operation, cannot be promoted to
a buyer’s position due to an
insurmountable lack of professional
knowledge.

In Japan, the career
system is built
the other way around. Employees
are not labor
commodities
but members
of an
organization. They
are hired without
presumption
of any work-related skills, and
are subsequently transferred within the
firm from one
type of work to another in
a lifelong process
of job rotation
and
promotion. The Japanese worker
thereby learns many aspects of the employer’s
business and is less apt to change
employers.

The U.S. system of career
development is structured that way for reason
other than
economic advantage.
The myth
that some
workers
are endowed
with greater
amounts or a higher quality of
knowledge serves to justify differences
in
pay. The rigid barriers
between
jobs of
different types are
a force serving
to restrict
labor competition and so drive
up compensation.

Why do U.S.
employers tolerate this practice? It may be that
the people
who benefit most
from this system,
the upper-level
managers and professionals,
are
the ones making the decisions.
It may be that educational
institutions, with
their
vast networks
of teachers
and
alumni, also have
an
interest in the
mythology supporting this practice:
that only the knowledge acquired
in schools
or in
formal training courses have
a real
value as knowledge and that
knowledge picked up
on the job, being incidental,
is somehow inferior to that
kind.

For employers, an opportunity
lies in removing the knowledge
from
the employees’ heads
and expressing it in a more
open and objective way. For,
most kinds of work are organized
along the lines of a rational
procedure. Accordingly, the
work-performing
techniques and procedures
can be expressed in words
to describe
a set of steps needing to
be taken. Once that is done,
the
knowledge so embodied becomes
available
to any reasonably intelligent
person That means that the
employers are no longer at
the mercy of particular employees,
but, if need be, they can
hire replacements
at an entry-level wage and
reliably bring them up to
the level of knowledge required
in the job position.

The
possession of knowledge
does not confer such a
permanent economic
advantage
because
knowledge
is inherently
general
and therefore
accessible to anyone
of ordinary intelligence.
Only its original discovery
involves
the uncertainties
of the creative process
or what is called “genius”.
After that, the task becomes
to capture the knowledge
in a form which will allow
it to be transferred
easily and reliably to
others for the knowledge
will be
of no use unless the person
applying it receives the
full communications There
is a chain of events
in passing knowledge from
one person to another which
could break down at any
point. The challenge for
an employer
who wants to improve work
performance becomes
to find the weak links
in the chain of communicated
knowledge and make the
necessary
repairs.

The medical industry
has undergone a certain
revolution
with the
procedure of following
checklists before
performing difficult
operations.
The
checklist ensures
that all essential knowledge
will be brought to bear
on the situation
at
hand.
Did,
for instance, the
surgeon remember
to wash his
hands? Airlines pilots
have long followed this
procedure; and it has
helped to prevent
many accidents.
Yet,
because medical doctors
have
an elevated position
due to their many years
of education, the checklist
revolution
has met some
resistance
from that
quarter.
Who wants to be reminded
by a lowly
nurse what to do?

In manufacturing,
an enormous improvement
in production
processes took place
with the adoption
of standard
or interchangeable
parts, and later with the
development of the
assembly line. What happened was
that the manufacture
of
goods was removed
from the realm of personal
craftsmanship. Parts
and processes of production
were subjected to a
universal design. Therefore,
the
knowledge to do
this kind of
work no longer belonged
to individual workers;
it belonged
to the system.
The workers
were required only
to follow
a
rigorous set
of instructions
provided by engineers.
Each part was given
a unique number
for
inventory-control purposes.
The smaller and simpler
parts were combined
in larger
and more complicated
assemblies belonging
to
the final product.
The
work to support such
production was likewise
organized with meticulous
attention to detail.
The employees, though
highly productive,
did not participate intellectually
in the work.

Much the
same process has
begun to affect
the world
of white-collar
work. With
the advent
of the computer,
erstwhile
professionals
are being turned
into knowledge
mechanics. We speak
of “processing
information” as
if information were
physical parts in
manufacturing. Information,
too, can
have a rational design
and what is done
with it in the office
can
resemble processes
in a factory. Functions
performed in the
office might be dramatically
improved if their
knowledge
were
explicitly identified.
Each piece of knowledge
might be given a
precise description
and be
tagged with a number
or other identifying
feature. The knowledge
might
be kept in a known
storage place, scheduled
for regular use,
and made accessible
to
its user. It is here
at the point of integrating
human labor into
a sophisticated
operation of knowledge
that many systems
fail.

It is fair to
say that industry’s
first experience
with computers
did not live up
to expectations.
Mainframe computers
were an efficient
means of handling
large amounts of
similar information,
but they did not
respond well to
the
need
to make adjustments
in particular cases.
Lacking a sense
of reasonableness,
they
sometimes produced
errors which human
beings would have
caught. Perhaps
the worst problem
was
poor communication
of knowledge between
computer specialists
and
the end user. Although
reference manuals
were usually provided
with the software,
they were often
poorly written,
providing
much computer-related
detail but little
help for novices
to the system.

Later
the personal
computer came along,
offering
more “user-friendly” features.
The term, “user-friendly”,
is a euphemism
for giving the
user enough knowledge
to work with
the computer
system.
Software packages
such as Lotus
1-2-3 were developed,
with an array
of
knowledge-providing
features including
user-directed
menus, step-by-step
tutorials, helpful
prompts, and
reference keys.
Gradually
more office workers
warmed up to
the computer,
and the
technology began
to fulfill its
promise. The
lesson from this
is that
technologically
advanced products
may
have little benefit
unless supported
by the right
structure of
knowledge. The
connection between
an electronic
system
and its human
user is the weak
link
in the chain.

Because
most people
are reluctant
to
admit their
ignorance
of work-related
knowledge,
the problem
of simple incompetence
may
be underestimated.
Every work
procedure or piece of knowledge
required in
work can be expressed
in numbers
and words. The simplest
way to do that
would be to
write it down
on a piece
of paper.
Other techniques
exist,
however, which
may
improve the
expression or transmission
of knowledge.
There is the
possibility
of recording lectures
or work
demonstrations
on
videotape which
can be played
back on
television
screens as
often as a person wants.
There are audiocassette
tapes,
slides,
flip charts,
and so
on, to enliven
a presentation
of knowledge
and reinforce
its retention
in
memory.

Even
in a small
operation,
cultivating
knowledge
should be
the center of improvement
efforts.
The manager
or
supervisor
is generally
the
one responsible
for this
function.
Such a person trains
new
employees
or arranges
for training.
He
or she defines
the tasks
that need
to be
performed;
the definition,
in turn,
defines
the required
knowledge.
A strong
and able
leader will communicate
well
with subordinates,
make
sure that
knowledgeable
back-up people
are
available
for various positions,
and review
methods and
procedures
in
search of
a better
way. As much as
possible,
the knowledge should
be made
objective
- be cut
loose
from particular
people
and what
lies within their
brains -
so that
behind
each work
function or position
there stands
a ghost-like
structure
of expressions
to
define
its being.

But
since work
is anachronistically
viewed
in terms
of
spending
time, this
part
of the
process is often
ignored.
Workers
are left
alone to
do the
work they
know how
to do,
and no
one else,
not even
the
supervisor,
knows that
they do.
In the
absence
of such knowledge,
the
supervisor
develops
other standards
of
performance
which
are more
readily
determined.
He imagines,
for
instance,
that the
person
who puts
in many
hours of work must
be making
an extra
effort
and doing a
good job.
The ability
to
talk intelligently,
dress
well,
tell good
jokes,
etc, would
be some
other indications
that the
employee
is probably
competent
and
doing a
good job.
As
a direct
result
of ignorance
and confusion
about what
workers
actually
do in this
technical
age, employers
have made
a
fetish
of
working
long hours.
Its basic
theme of
this
philosophy
is: If
you can’t
measure
output, you measure
input.
You see the time
that has
gone into
an activity
and assume
that
something
useful
has been produced.

value of leisure

Leisure
is correspondingly
a condition
much
out of favor
in our
society
today,
because
it suggests
that
a person
did nothing.
At least,
the employer
did
not benefit
directly
from
what the
person
did.
Yet, if creation
of knowledge
is
the key
to
industrial
progress,
the people
expected
to
produce
this
knowledge must have
refreshed
minds.
They
refresh
their
minds
more in recreational
and other
leisure-time
activities
than
in plodding
along
for many
hours
in an existing
job routine.

Long
ago,
trade-union
agitators
argued
that
it
was
necessary
to
cut the hours
of
work
to
save jobs
from
displacement
by
machines. Advancing
technology
has
made it possible
for
a smaller
number
of
workers to
produce
more
goods,
so
that the employer
would
be
able to
dismiss
others
currently
employed.
If
a similar
process
took
place
in
a number
of
industries
at
the same
time,
the
dismissed
workers
might
not
be
able to become
reemployed.
Arguments
that
the
economy cannot
afford
to
give working
people
more
time
off
from work
are
usually based
on
the
idea that
production
is
directly
proportionate
to
time worked
and
that less
production
means
less
wealth.
However,
this
argument
overlooks
the
vast amount
of
waste generated
in
the
economy. There
is
waste in useless
products
and
unwholesome consumption.
There
is
also
waste
in
the
process of production.

The “potato-peeling” model
of work assumes that production is the limiting factor in the
economy whereas we all know that in a capitalistic economy
the
constraint is usually consumer markets. Production capacity
is perpetually in oversupply relative to markets. Given that
situation,
the remedy is not to
increase
production through increased hours of work but to increase
markets. Cutting
hours helps to increase markets because people use more consumer
products in their free or leisure time than they do during
working hours. The new potential
use
stimulates consumer demand. Moreover, the job-creation aspect
of reduced work hours puts more money in the pocket of previously
unemployed workers.

Knowledge
is also
an element
in the
consumption of
goods. One
must learn
how to
use technologically
advanced products.
Therefore, to
purchase such
products implies
a commitment to
spend the
time to
acquire the
requisite knowledge.
Persons who
know that
they lack
the time
for this
will be
inclined not
to buy
the product.
Alternatively, they
may purchase
the product
but never
use it.

It
may be
that goods
production may
be lagging
as an
industrial sector
because in
our leisure-starved
society people
do not
have the
time to
find a
use for
certain products,
or they
may lack
the time
to learn
how to
use products
properly for
which they
have a
use. Their
free time
is too
scarce to
be committed
to acquiring
knowledge about
those products.
The consumption
of services,
on the
other hand,
is expanding.
That may
be because
purchased services
save people’s time.
When a person hires a tax preparer to prepare his taxes or
a tailor to mend clothing, he does not need to spend time
either
doing the work or learning how to do it.
The provider of the service has this knowledge already and
will apply it to one’s
service for a sum of money.

In
the future,
employees of
a firm
may be
given easier
permission to
reduce hours
or take
leaves so
long as
they remain
available for
consultation as
their knowledge
is needed.
That way,
their accumulation
of work-related
knowledge would
not be
lost to
the firm;
neither would
it be
sold to
a competing
firm. Such
arrangements are
often made
with recently
retired employees,
especially in
the upper
echelons, but
there is
no good
reason why
it should
not be
extended to
other employees.
Work would
then assume
a bifurcated
structure. Part
of it
would remain
tied to
time-based employment
and expenditure
of personal
effort. The
other part
would supply
knowledge and
levy an
access charge.
In such
arrangements, the
contractual form
of labor
would coincide
more closely
with its
underlying purpose.